Los Angeles daily herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1884-1890, 1887-11-14
EXTINCTION OF THE BUFFALO.
The War of determination Com.
plete.

The time was when buffalo hun
ter would have scorned the idea of
gathering up dry bones for a living.
Indeed, it often happened that his
royal highness would not even deign
to skin the buffolo that his own rifle
brought down. But, thanks to bis
own observation-disclosures, "Othello's
occu atoms gone" The buffalo are
all dead, and he must choose between
punching COWS and picking up bones.
To this extent the slain buffalo is his
own avenger.
At various points along the line of
the Northern Pacific Railway west
ward from jamestown, OAK, buffalo
bones lay piled in great heaps beside
the track, waiting for shipment. They
are the only monuments that remain
to the American bison, which, to
quote the great original observation of
every tenderfoot, "once roamed in
vast herds over these boundless prai-
ries." In short time even the bones
will all be gathered up, and nothing
| whatever remain to mark the pres
ence upon this earth OF 5000, 900 bison
at one time, save what can be found
in the museums, the geologic gardens
or the tertiary deposits of the earth
itself. Could any war of extermina-
ton be more complete or far-reaching
in its results?
From the Red Buttes onward you
see where the millions are gone.
This was once famous buffalo range,
and now the bleaching skeletons lie
scattered thickly all along the trail.
| Like CHASTITY monuments of slaughter,
| these ugly excrescences stand out in
bold relief on the smooth, hard sur
face of the prairie from the huge bull
skeletons, lying close beside the
wagon trail to those far back in the
bad lands, where they are merely
dark specks in the distance. They lie
to-day precisely as they fell four years
ago, except that the flesh is no longer
upon them. The head stretches far
forward, as if for its last gasp, and the
legs lie helplessly upon the turf with
precisely the same curves as when
they moved for the last time.
Now and then you come to a place
where the hunter got "stand" on a
"bunch," and from his hiding-place
in the head of gully or among the
rocks fred leisurely with his 4O-12O
Sharpe's rifle, at the rate of a shot
every two or three minutes, until
every buffalo of the bunch had fallen.
Here you can count seventeen skele-
tons on little more than an acre, and
near by are fourteen more that evil
IDENTIFY fell at the same time. Tie
powerful effects of the strong, parch
ing winds and the intense dry heat of
summer has literally stripped the
flesh from the bones, but the skeletons
lie pre- cisely as they fell. The bones
are still held together by a few dried
up ligaments, but are bleached as
white as snow. Sometimes we found
immense skeletons that were abso-
lutely perfect, even to the tiny carpal
and tarsal bones, the size of hazel
nut. OF these dry skeletons we Sc
lected eight OF the finest and largest,
and they are now cached in the stor-
age rooms OF the National Museum
against the great famine for bison
that will soon set in.
Beyond the Red Buttes we are
seldom out of sight of bleaching skel-
etons, and often forty and fifty were
in sight at one time. The skinners
} always left the heads OF the bulls un.
skinned, and the thick hide has